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Summary

This is my version of an enclosure for my 3D printer built using the Ikea LACK tables. Although I took inspiration from other projects and models, the base model is created by me from scratch and not morphed from any other code.

I took the idea of sitting two LACK tables on the end of their legs and so created a space that is twice the height of one table and large enough for my Ender 3 printer. The rear sides are fully enclosed with acrylic panels, and the front is hinged. Acrylic is glued to supports.

The print thickness is adjustable as is the acrylic panel thickness. Strut size, hole size and even which holes to print can be selected if you use the Customizer app here on Thingiverse.

Print Settings

You will likely need strong materials such as nylon or PETG, particularly for the hinge pin and flange parts. Instead of drilling the acrylic I prefer to use strong glues such as Tensol 12 which gives a good mechanical bond between PETG and acrylic.

The side panels are 450x800mm, and I used 3mm thick clear acrylic. The front door will vary in size depending on the parameters you choose for the acrylic thickness and print thickness. At ac=3 and pt=2 the front door is 442x795mm, for example. Using actual OpenSCAD will show these measurements on the inside of the support, but they do not render nor show when using the Makerbot Customizer here on Thingiverse.

Initially, I connected the legs with the weaker end together but a better idea is to source locally some 44mm x 44mm lumber, remove the end plug from the bottom of the legs (see photo) and insert it into the legs. I took this idea from the YouTube user MrTvTim and his video showing this is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STYolyA7j3E.

How I Designed This

Using OpenSCAD

I really enjoy OpenSCAD and its visualiser. Using a programming language I very quickly get into a loop of changing one thing, pressing the 'test' button and then observing the result. Development proceeds in a step-wise fashion which quickly produces results. Another advantage of doing this is that you can 'stub' bits that are not developed yet by using hard-coded values, so with this model I started with a reference size of LACK=50mm, strut size of 25mm, holes of 3mm and so on. Once the model had been created I then went back and made them into parameters.

I observe that the model mostly works for reasonable sizes such as 3mm acrylic and 5mm print thickness. Making them too large or too small gives some weird shapes and intersections that are wrong.

Thing License

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